Study: Arkansas Medicaid Work Requirement Hits Those Already Employed

Jun 19, 2019

The Medicaid work requirement plan devised by Arkansas and approved by the Trump administration backfired because it caused thousands of poor adults to lose coverage without any evidence the target population gained jobs, a new study finds.

In fact, the requirement had only a limited chance for success as nearly 97% of Arkansas residents ages 30-49 who were eligible for Medicaid — those subject to the mandate — were already employed or should have been exempt from the new law, according to the study published Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Yet the state’s mandate — the first of its kind in the nation — resulted in 18,000 of the 100,000 targeted people falling off the Medicaid rolls. And despite administration officials’ statements that many of them may have found jobs, the study by researchers at Harvard found no evidence they secured either jobs or other insurance coverage. In fact, it noted a dip in the employment rate among those eligible for Medicaid….